Mortal Coil

by Reeve

LXXI - Crane

Twilight made it look almost effortless as she blasted through the ornate doors with a churning, raging beam of magical energy. Burning an almost perfect circle right through the base of them, and allowing us to walk straight through to the lab beyond. It was unlike anything we had encountered up to that point, a huge towering room, the entire area bathed in a venomous green glow. The equipment here was even more complicated and sophisticated than what we had seen in the west wing, lots of large machines chugging away, and consoles with various displays that went right over my head.

There were tables with bodies on them, half dissected corpses of both normal ponies and a random assortment of monsters. I saw jars with disembodied limbs, including severed horns and wings floating in a jelly like substance. There were stacks of notes, and countless vials of coloured liquids and powders arranged on shelves or fixed over heaters. In the centre of the room was a pillar like device, which towered from the floor to the ceiling. Arranged randomly around it, jutting outwards, were large glass canisters, some of which were empty, others holding ponies suspended in liquid with dozens of wires attached to them, and what looked like a metal spine driving into the backs of their skulls, it was impossible to tell if they were alive or dead.

There were dozens of floors and levels to the tower, only the ground floor we stood on was made from the same stone as the rest of the cathedral, the rest must have been installed by the Covenant themselves, as they were made from metal mesh grids, with railings around them and ladders connecting them to one another. There were even more work areas on the platforms, and doors leading off to other areas from the main tower room, the whole thing looked very haphazard. It was the very top of the lab which really drew our gaze, for it was there that was the source of the green glow.

The ceiling was made from the same mesh as the platforms, effectively separating the tower from the room above, but we were just about able to see a large spherical canister, situated on the very top of the mechanical column. It was mostly obscured from view by the distance and the metal grid, but we could just about make out a dark shape floating in the luminous green liquid. I heard Twilight make a small noise behind me, and looked around to see her eyes wide and shimmering as she stared up at it.

“It’s her…” she breathed in awe. “Princess Clover.”

“Ah, I see you finally made it,” Crane’s voice echoed out, snapping us all out of our daze. “I am disappointed you caused sister Suri to meet her end, but I know better than anypony that sacrifices must be made for the greater good, and her sacrifice will be remembered. Still, at least she was able to keep you all busy long enough for the rest of my children to begin making preparations.”

“What are you talking about Crane?!” I demanded. “Where in Tartarus is everypony?!”

“Now that we are so close to attaining our goal,” Crane began. “It is time that we began preparations for the next stage of our plan. This very night, after my loyal followers have witnessed the culmination of all our efforts, we will abandon this place and set forth to face the world. It is almost time, so there is still time for you to see the light and join me…”

“That’s not going to happen!” I shouted over him. “We’re coming up there right now, and we’re going take you down!”

“Everypony grab on,” Twilight instructed.

We all obeyed as Twilight began focusing her magic, we waited, readying ourselves for the moment when we teleported up to the room above… but that moment never came.

“What…” Twilight uttered in confusion when the light around her horn died out and we were still standing on the ground floor.

“My apologies Twilight Sparkle,” Crane said in an amused voice. “But surely one of your genius would realise that to conduct experiments such as these, you must have complete control over the environment, you can’t have ponies jumping across space and disrupting everything.”

“Then we’ll do this the old fashioned way!” Rainbow declared. “And we’ll start by trashing this place first!”

“No Rainbow, wait!” Twilight shouted just as Rainbow made to throw her spear at the column. “Without knowing how all this works, we can’t risk damaging it. We need to get up there so I can figure out a way to stop this without any risk of error.”

“Then what are we waiting for?!” Pinkie asked, running for the nearest ladder to begin the ascent.

We all followed, Rainbow and Fluttershy flying, but always staying close to the rest of us, while we started taking the ladders. Not usually the same ones, so we found ourselves progressing at different rates.

“Why do you insist on opposing me?” Crane asked, almost whining. “Can you not see that what I am doing will be for everypony’s benefits?”

We chose to ignore him this time, just focusing on climbing higher, but he wasn’t about to give up talking us over to his side.

“Applejack,” Crane began again, Applejack herself hesitating as her name was mentioned. “You’ve seen the injustices of this world, you’ve tried to remain good and honest, and yet what has this world given you in return? Your orchard was almost burnt to the ground by the ones you had fought for, your farm was raided and your family’s safety was threatened by the ones with fought with. In my world, there will be no strong to oppress the weak, for everypony will be brought up to the same level. You and your family can live in peace and safety, confident in the knowledge that nothing will endanger your loved ones and your livelihood again.”

“Yeah the world’s a messed up place,” Applejack admitted as she kept on climbing. “Ah’ve seen ponies do terrible things just because they could, but having power requires you also have the responsibility to know when to use, and more importantly when not to use it. You might be able to make gods and monsters with your fancy science, but you can’t make a pony good if they’re already rotten on the inside. All you’re doin’ is putting a weapon in the hooves of somepony willing to use it. You’re right that changin’ the world requires you to change the ponies livin’ in it, but it’s a change that takes time and patience, there is no miracle formula to inject and make everything instantly better.”

“Yeah, you tell him AJ!” Rainbow cheered from where she hovered.

“I’m surprised at you Rainbow Dash,” Crane went on, grabbing her attention. “Your whole life has been a quest to make yourself the very best you can be. Always training and practising, always pushing yourself to become stronger, faster… better. What I’m offering is for you to become the best anypony can possibly be, you would become a symbol of perfection in every way. With just one dose, you would reach a peak you could never achieve otherwise, no matter how long you lived and strived for it.”

“So what?” Rainbow uttered in a disinterested voice. “Even if you weren’t a crazy dude, I would still never let you stick a needle in me. What is there for you to be proud of when you change yourself? When you’re faster and stronger than anypony else, what of it will you have earned? It doesn’t make you special; it makes you ignorant to what’s really important. I practise and I train all the time, but not because I want to be the very best, but because I want to become the very best. It’s the process of doing, the journey to the final goal that really matters, because it’s that which builds you up and gives you something that you can reflect on and be really proud of. It’s no different if the thing you work on is making dresses or farming apples or studying magic, it’s not what we grow into, but the fact that we grew.”

“Let me guess,” I muttered to her, as I pulled myself up onto another platform. “Daring Do?”

“Nope, that one was all me,” Rainbow declared proudly.

“Well what about you sister Fluttershy?” Crane asked, sounding irritated, but trying to hide it. “You must be feeling ecstatic to know that the Six are real, after all, your entire life has been defined by your desire to follow their example. The Covenant and the Celestial Sisterhood really aren’t that different, it was after all in their shadow that we planted our roots, growing inside the churches scattered across the country and building our numbers from there. We have taken our beliefs to the next level, by following the Six in the path to ascension. This is the natural step forward for us, for you Fluttershy, to follow in their hoofsteps and join them as alicorns.”

“I don’t believe that,” Fluttershy replied in a calm voice. “We might not know a lot about the Six, but if there’s one thing I’m sure, is that they earned their wings and horns. They proved themselves worthy of them, just like we proved ourselves worthy on the Isle of Serenity, you have done nothing to make you deserving of either. Besides, while I once believed that I needed to mimic the examples of the Six perfectly, I now know that they wouldn’t have wanted that of us. They would have wanted all ponies to follow their own paths, to overcome their own obstacles and find their calling in life. Their example is just that, only an example to help us in building a more harmonious world, but it is ultimately down to each of us to find our path… one where there’s no hoofsteps to follow.”

“That is… most disappointing sister,” Crane muttered, his voice becoming more irritated. “But Twilight Sparkle, surely you can see the good in what I am doing. You have studied under Princess Celestia herself since you were only a filly, you have strived to learn as much as you can, all so you could better serve her and make her proud. What I am working on is without a doubt, the greatest quest for knowledge of all time. What would make your dear mentor… no, mother, more proud than for you to be a part of that quest and be able to join her by her side… as her equal?”

“Don’t even try to talk about the Princess like you know what she would want!” Twilight snapped back, before calming down and continuing in a more heartfelt tone. “She means the world to me, I used to think there was nothing I wouldn’t give up just to see her smile, and to believe for even a second that she might love me as much as I loved her… but I’m wiser now, my friends helped me with that. I know what I believe in this matter, as much as the idea might have tantalised me years ago, there is no knowledge worth endangering the world over. As for what would make her proud, if it was between becoming her equal or staying true to what I know is right; I know which one it would be.”

“You are all being foolish!” Crane exclaimed, losing his temper. “What right does Celestia have to horde such power for herself? She could have helped bring us to her level, but instead she chose to deny it to us. She forced us all to remain in the dirt, while she perched on the clouds, looking down upon us, but I refused to let her existence go unchallenged. If she can be an alicorn, then why not us?! Why not me?!”

"You’re insane,” I muttered, looking up to see that we were almost at the top.

“And what about you Pinkie Pie?” Crane asked, his voice suddenly calm again if not slightly sinister. “Or would you prefer to be called… Discord?”

Pinkie froze as she reached out for a ladder, spinning around and staring up at the ceiling, rage in her eyes.

“Celestia is your enemy as much as she is mine,” Crane tried to say. “Together we could…”

“Shut up!” Pinkie yelled, her voice filled with pure hatred. “You tried to have me killed! I helped you and you stabbed me in the back… almost literally. If you wanted my help, then I’m afraid to tell you that ship sailed.”

“I deeply regret the actions we took against you,” Crane apologised in an unconvincing tone. “But you have to understand that you carry a certain reputation, one of being… untrustworthy. Had I known at the time you were in actual fact, very strong when it came to what you believed in, I would never have had to take such measures against you… and besides, we still have what you want.”

Pinkie’s anger slipped, for a moment it was replaced by hope, but it didn’t last long when her eyes flickered across to where Twilight stood on a different platform, watching her curiously.

“I figured you were just lying when your goons first told me they had it,” Pinkie went on, her voice low. “Even now I doubt you’re telling me the truth, but even if you are… then I don’t want it!”

“Disc… uh, Pinkie Pie,” Crane began in a warning tone. “This is what you need, the key to opening the gates of Tartarus and unlocking your stolen powers and memories. All those burning questions that have weighed down upon you since you first bonded on that rock farm, they can all be answered, all you have to do is join me.”

“That’s what he offered you,” Twilight muttered. “The Star of Chaos.”

“What’s that?” Fluttershy asked me, but I just shrugged in response.

“It’s the artefact that the cultists tried to use all those years ago,” Twilight explained, not taking her eyes off Pinkie Pie. “To open the gate in Canterlot, and bring Discord back. We thought it had been lost, perhaps destroyed…”

“It might as well be,” Pinkie cut in, her voice firm. “Because I don’t want it, I don’t care if I never get my memories back; the only thing that matters is the here and now. I have my friends… and we’re going to stop you, that is what matters!”

There was a long silence as we waited to see if Crane would respond, but he never did. Pinkie nodded back at us all, and we hurried up the final couple of levels. Upon reaching the highest one, we started looking about for the next ladder, but saw no obvious entrance that would take us from the tower to the room above.

“Try that door,” I stated, indicating the only one on this level.

It caught my eye because there was a sing on it, saying ‘private’. Considering this entire lab was already exclusive to Crane and his highest ranking followers only, that sign suggested something very important lay behind it. Twilight knelt down and fiddled with the locks using her magic, it presented no challenge for her, and soon the door was open and we were greeted with a dark room. We walked in without much hesitation; similarly Fluttershy raised her mace and whispered to it without giving it much thought.

When the weapon shone and the room was illuminated, she immediately dropped it with a scream of horror upon seeing what lay inside. Indeed we all had mixed reactions; from uttering a horrified noise, to leaping instinctively back from the room’s horrific centrepiece. It was a medical chair, like one you might find in a dentist’s office, fully reclined back, a body lay on it… a body that was mid autopsy. I could see that the mare's coat was a pale shade of green, almost grey; at least I could see that in the parts that weren’t covered in dry, crusted blood.

Her whole chest was opened up, her ribcage pulled open and held in place by a clamp like device. I didn’t need to look too closely to see that all her internal organs had been removed, nor did I have to look far to see them all inside jars, floating in preservative liquid. The jars were on a counter at the side of the room, while next to the chair was a metal trolley, with lots of bloody tools that had presumably been used to dissect the mare. Applejack was the first to find her stomach again and risk circling around the mare, she didn’t walk far before she stopped and gasped at something.

Curiosity overpowering my urge to throw up, I followed Applejack and saw what had shocked her. The mare’s head was sawn open, the entire top half of the skull removed, along with her mane, but more than that, her head was completely empty. I glanced back at the jars, but saw no brain among them. I briefly wondered where it might be, before I noticed the rest of the mare’s head lying, practically discarded beneath the chair she was lying on. Levitating it out, all the while aware that I was being incredibly disrespectful, I saw that she had an auburn mane, tied in a long braid.

“Fauna,” I whispered, my eyes turning back to her.

The others glanced at me in confusion, before looking back to Fauna’s body with realisation dawning in their eyes.

“Oh my goodness…” Fluttershy uttered, stumbled forward and reaching out to the body with a shaky hoof. “We were too late.”

I could see tears springing to her eyes, so I set the body part down and walked over to her, pulling her into a hug before she could make physical contact with the body.

“We… we should call Harbinger in now,” I told her in a shaky voice. “He should know.”

Fluttershy sniffed loudly before nodding and pulling away from me.

“H… Harbinger,” Fluttershy called out to the ceiling. “Harbinger, if you can hear me… we need you to come here.”

There was a long silence while we waited for something to happen.

“Maybe… maybe he has to actually fly here,” Rainbow suggested. “But he’s pretty fast, so if we give him a minute…”

“He should be here by now…” Applejack said in a concerned voice, glancing out the open door and confirming that he wasn’t flying up to meet us.

While the rest of us waited with bated breath, Twilight walked over to the chair and began examining the body.

“This… this looks like it was done some time ago,” she reported. “Not sure how long exactly, but…”

She drifted off for a second before giving a little gasp of surprise. We all spun around from the door, which we were eagerly watching, and saw her standing with her sceptre drawn, the orb pointed directly over Fauna’s open chest where a pale blue sphere floated.

“Another memory sphere?” Pinkie said in surprise, as we all walked back over to the chair.

“Perhaps she left a final message for us,” I proposed. “A last attempt to help us.”

There was a moment of painful silence as we contemplated that, before Twilight raised her sceptre, glancing at us all with a tentative expression. Fluttershy gave her the nod to proceed, while we all backed up to the walls so as not to interfere with whatever the memory would display. Twilight pointed the sceptre at the memory sphere and began fiddling about, trying to get the right magical frequency to unlock it. The last time it had taken her a few minutes, this time she got it in a few seconds, no doubt it had been the same frequency. She twisted her sceptre like a key, and the room was washed with the blue light as the memory began to form before us.

Fauna’s body was made whole, although she was still dead, lying on the reclined chair while two ponies stood beside her. One was Crane, looking down at her and trembling with fury, while the second was just a random pony in covenant robes, who was also trembling, but more out of fear as he shrunk back from Crane.

“W… we tried to bring her back,” he stammered in a panicked voice. “B… but she just kept crashing; any attempt to resuscitate her was a complete failure.”

“Get out…” Crane whispered in barely audible, but deadly tone.

“I… I’m sorry?” the other pony uttered, apparently not hearing Crane.

“Get out!” Crane bellowed, swinging out at the other pony with his hoof.

The stallion, despite being bigger than Crane, flinched from his attack and collapsed to the ground before the hoof could connect with him. Within seconds, he scrambled to his hooves and rushed from the room, out the door we had entered from, leaving Crane alone with Fauna’s dead body, seething with rage.

“She never did talk, did she?” a new voice asked.

The voice was eerily familiar, I felt my heart racing as I turned to the second door in the room, the one that was closed in the present, but was now lying open in this memory. The figure emerged from the shadows, at once all my friends either gasped or exclaimed at the sight of him, I simply stared, my earlier fear confirmed by what I saw before me… Duke Blueblood standing in the doorway, still wearing the suit we had captured him in, although it looked like it had suffered some damage and been repaired since, he also wore a sour expression as he stared at Crane.

“No, she was very… difficult throughout all our meetings,” Crane admitted, his voice still shaking with anger.

Blueblood nodded slightly, a frown appearing on his face as he walked further into the room. I could see Crane tensing up as he did, and he was right to do so, as Blueblood’s horn lit up and he lashed out with a wave of magic. Crane was hurled into the wall where he was pinned, hanging by the throat which he instinctively started grasping at, as if he could somehow physically remove Blueblood’s magical grip on him.

“P… please…” he gasped.

“I have given you more than enough time!” Blueblood snapped at him. “I took great risks when I had those troops sent to the Isle of Serenity, if anypony had found out… or heavens forbid, Celestia had found out… I took risks to help you capture this whore and her friends. Yet you’ve squandered my help, you had all her allies killed or mutated beyond use, and now you’ve allowed her to die on your watch before she could serve her purpose!”

Blueblood dropped Crane when he saw that his face had begun to turn slightly purple. The decrepit stallion took a huge gulp of air when he landed on the floor, rubbing his neck and glaring daggers at the floor as he dared not antagonise Blueblood further.

“I… I helped you,” he muttered bitterly. “I freed you from Maverick after your blunder at Port Mule, and this is how you repay me? This is your idea of gratitude?”

“Don’t be a fool Crane,” Blueblood retorted. “You freed me because you needed my help, just like I helped attack the Isle all that time ago because I needed your help. Ponies like us don’t do ‘gratitude’; we do things because we expect things to be done in return. You broke me free and I provided you with a few dozen easy test subjects, which you’ve no doubt squandered as well. I sent Equestrian soldiers to their death on the Isle of Serenity, at great risk to my own wellbeing, despite you keeping me in the dark about what your intentions really were… and now I want in on this little scheme of yours. I want ascension, so explain to me why I don’t have it yet!”

“We have… hit a bit of a dead end with our research,” Crane admitted in a grumbling tone. “It should work in theory, we have done everything right, and yet nothing we’ve created is even close to an alicorn.”

“So now the truth comes out,” Blueblood replied, narrowing his eyes at Crane. “How many weeks has it been since your minions spirited me away from that ship? How long since you welcomed me into your… Covenant and told me the truth about what I unintentionally aided you in? And how long have you been lying to me, telling me that it was only a matter of days before a breakthrough was made?”

“We… had everything under control,” Crane tried to say, sounding like he was about to burst into angry tears as he glared at the body of Fauna. “She was supposed to be the key, and yet she endured months of… persuasive methods and never once told us a thing. With everything we attempt ending in failure, her talking was our last hope at finishing what we’ve started… this blunder could not have come at a worse time.”

Blueblood was breathing heavily, clearly frustrated with how unproductive Crane had proven himself to be.

“You’re pathetic,” Blueblood spat at him. “An earth pony who looks like a strong breeze could break him, all you have is your mind, and even that’s proved ineffective. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just snap your neck right now? I don’t need to be an alicorn to get revenge, I guess your army of mindless drones and bloodthirsty abominations will do the job well enough… not to mention your other little project. So tell me, is this the end? Was the whore right all along? Is ascension really an impossible goal?”

Crane was trembling again, a mixture of panic and anger; I could see his mind racing behind his eyes, trying desperately to come up with something that would placate Blueblood.

“There is… one thing,” he said at last. “Something I’ve considered for a long time but… but it was never a feasible option. Although I’ve been thinking about it a lot more lately, when I saw we weren’t getting anywhere with our current methods.”

“What are you going on about?” Blueblood asked in an irritated voice. “Just cut to the chase already.”

“I think… I think that everything we’re doing right now is correct,” Crane said quickly. “But that we’re missing one thing, a catalyst if you will. To be more specific, if an alicorn is what we’re trying to create… then an alicorn is what we need, their genetics could hold the key to completing our work.”

“You need an actual alicorn?” Blueblood said in disbelief. “You really are a mad scientist. If you want to walk up to Celestia and try to get a sample of her blood, then be my guest, just don’t be surprised when you find yourself incinerated in the fires of the sun.”

“I’m no fool Blueblood,” Crane spat. “I know full well that getting close to Celestia just to touch her hoof would be impossible, let alone capturing and carrying out experiments on her. No matter how many children I have at my beck and call, I will never have the strength to take her on and come out the victor.”

Blueblood gave a small snort as he stared into space.

“There was once a time I would have killed you where you stood for even entertaining that idea,” he muttered in a low voice. “But now I know what that kind of undying loyalty gets you… absolutely nothing! A cold cell and the promise of never seeing another day as a free stallion. I’ll make them pay for how they treated me… no matter what the cost is. What about the other five alicorns that make up the Six, don’t tell me you of all ponies think they’re a myth.”

“Of course I know they’re real,” Crane replied with derision. “But considering centuries have passed since the six became one, and nopony has come close to discovering where they really are, I don’t really want to rely on that crutch to hold me up. All we have to go on are legends… legends which conflict with one another to be more precise. Some say one was sent to Tartarus for crimes worse than those of Discords, others say one watches over Tartarus as its warden. Some say one was lost with the fabled Crystal Empire, others say she was corrupted by dark magic and destroyed it herself. Nopony really knows where the missing alicorns are, except Celestia, and as much as I have dreamt of finding them myself, I cannot expend the resources and ponies necessary to chase that fantasy.”

Blueblood didn’t reply, but not because he was angry or about to lash out, but because his face has become slack, almost like something had occurred to him.

“Actually…” he began at last in an odd tone. “I might know where one of them is.”

“You do?” Crane questioned, torn between doubt and eagerness. “Well spit it out man!”

“Watch yourself Crane,” Blueblood growled before explaining himself. “Tell me, have you ever seen Celestia lose her temper with anypony? Because I have, but only on one occasion, many years ago. I was only starting my political career, I was training under my father, with the plan of taking his place. He had taken me with him on a trip to Arclight here in Panchea, to give me a taste of what lay outside Equestria’s mainland. Celestia however, arranged to have her apprentice travel with us, her precious little prodigy Twilight Sparkle.”

Blueblood said the name with such disdain that it was clear she was on his revenge list. We all looked around and saw her eyes widen in surprise at the mention of her name.

“She was supposed to be going there as part of her study,” Blueblood continued. “But she ran away, leaving an illusion to trick us. The mages at Arclight had detected it however and dispelled it, which left us to contact Celestia and tell her that her faithful student had run off somewhere. Of course Celestia rushed straight there and we began to organise a search party, only for the girl to return, looking like she had just crawled out of the Nether Vale… which turned out to be exactly what she had done.

“As I said, I have only seen Celestia lose her temper one time,” Blueblood went on. “This one time to be specific, and you have to understand what a significant event that was, as she never allows her negative emotions to show, no matter what she’s faced with. So to see her scream at this filly for making one stupid mistake, the kind you half expect every curious kid to do, it really got me thinking… something about the Nether Vale struck a nerve with Celestia, almost like she was afraid of her dear student finding something there that was supposed to remain hidden…”

Crane gaped at Blueblood as he realised where the story was going.

“You mean to say…” he began in an excited voice.

“I thought about it for a long time,” Blueblood stated. “And the explanation I kept coming back to, was there was something in the Demon Shaft, something Celestia knows about, but that she doesn’t want anypony else to know about. I think you and I both know what that something could be…”

“One of the Six is in the Demon Shaft,” Crane finished thoughtfully.

“That is my belief,” Blueblood said with a short nod. “Even if it is, I haven’t a clue where it might be exactly, or even if it’s alive or dead, but then again…”

Blueblood started walking towards the door he had appeared from.

“You have plenty of disposable minions you can send to find out,” he finished in a voice that left Crane with no doubt that he wasn’t being given an option in the matter. “Now I’ve helped you again, so help me in return by finding that alicorn and giving me what I want!”

With those final words, he stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him, leaving Crane alone with the body of Fauna, staring at the now shut door with undisguised hatred.

“I should never have brought him into this fold,” he muttered angrily as he pulled something from his robe pockets.

The device looked similar to the remote control Suri had used, except it had only one button and a circular indent on it.

“Sister Suri,” Crane spoke into the device while holding the button in. “I need you to assemble a team for a class A expedition.”

He pulled his hoof away from the button before glancing at Fauna, narrowing his eyes as he pressed the button in once more.

“And see to it that I am not disturbed for a few hours,” he added. “I have some work to do here.”

With that, the memory began to dissolve, the sheet of blue flowing back to where it originated, and the memory sphere taking shape once more. Once again we were standing in the room, the only light coming from Fluttershy’s mace to show us the results of Crane’s final work on Fauna.

“She never told them anything,” Fluttershy murmured. “Even after all she’d been put through… she never gave up what she knew.”

I lowered my eyes to the ground; I suddenly felt very weak, thinking back to how quickly I had cracked.

“And it was Blueblood who told them where to find Princess Clover,” Twilight added, her face pale. “And he only knew… because of me!”

“Don’t say that Twilight!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed. “Blueblood’s the bad guy here, not you.”

“Him and Crane,” Applejack reminded her. “They’re both responsible for what happened on the Isle of Serenity.”

“And we’re going to make them pay for it,” I finished, using my magic to open the door Blueblood had come from in the memory.

“But… what about Harbinger?” Fluttershy asked in a terrified voice. “He never came.”

We all fell silent, it was clear he wasn’t coming, but none of us had the heart to say it out loud.

“Come on,” I said, taking her hoof just like I had done when we arrived at the scene of the battle on the Isle. “He’d want us to finish this.”

Fluttershy nodded sadly, before allowing me to lead her through the door and up the steps beyond. We all ascended and stood grouped together at the next door, the door that would lead us into the final room where Clover’s body would be. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for what was to come… before reaching out with my magic and casting the door wide open.

Princess Clover… Clover the clever… the Element of Honesty… now nothing more than a collection of bones, barely held together by scraps of mummified flesh, floating in a great vat of liquid, that shone green with the intense magic her remains were still giving off, centuries after her death. It was a strange sight, one that left me feeling very hollow inside.

“You can’t say it isn’t incredible,” an all too familiar nasally voice said from the left end of the room.

We all turned to see Crane standing on a raised dais, a set of double doors closing behind him. He was actually there, no longer was his body the pale product of a memory, or his voice crackling over his projecting device, he was really and truly there. The thin, scrawny frame, the narrow, sharp facial features, the thinning hair and the robes with the addition of the plain black mantel, they were all the same as they had been when he first walked through the temple doors in that vision. What was new, was a brown coat and black mane, streaked with grey.

“Crane…” I growled as I started towards him, only to feel a hoof grab my shoulder.

“Don’t rush into anything,” Applejack whispered to me as she held me at bay. “We don’t know what this guy is capable of.”

“Yes, please listen to your friend Rarity,” Crane requested, giving me a thin smile before gesturing to the skeleton. “You didn’t answer my question; I want to know what you think.”

“I think you’re sick,” I retorted.

“You know Rarity,” Crane began as he stepped down off the dais and began walking around the glass container. “I really am disappointed you can’t look past your… misguided sense of morality and join me. I really was telling you the truth earlier, I’m impressed by you all… you especially. I still remember when you were first reported to me, yours was just one name in a list of fifty that one of my children had seen arriving on a ship from Equestria. I never would have guessed that I would be reading your name considerably more often in later reports. It wasn’t long before I was actively seeking you out, eager to hear what you were up to without having to hope that one of my followers would catch wind of it.”

“You can’t win me over with flattery,” I told him in a stern voice.

“No, I suppose not,” Crane admitted. “That is after all, your preferred weapon, is it not? I am of course referring to your little meeting with Arcana, quite sorry that I had to pull the plug on it, especially when you were doing so well… but I couldn’t have him spilling the beans so soon. He had been very useful to me for a long time, and it pained me to have him killed. Really I would like to have had him inducted into the Covenant, like I had with Blueblood as a reward for his services, but his views on race made it… difficult to see that working out.”

“Funny you should mention Blueblood,” I replied. “Were you aware of the memory sphere? Is that how you knew we found out about him?”

“Memory sphere?” Crane repeated in mild confusion, still walking neat circles around the tank. “No, I knew that cretin had left something… but I guess I wasn’t worthy to see what it was. Not that it matters, it ended up serving as a useful distraction to keep you busy while I made the finishing touches.”

“And now we know that on top of everything else, you freed Blueblood and turned all those sleeper agents into monsters!” I yelled at him, raising my sword while trying very hard not to rush him.

“That was Blueblood’s idea, not mine,” Crane said, like that made everything better. “Not that I was about to refuse his generous offering, test subjects have gotten so hard to come by since the end of the war, not that we didn’t do our best to perpetuate it.”

“You did what?!” Applejack exclaimed, looking like she was about to ignore her own advice and attack him.

“You didn’t think I would use Arcana and Blueblood for just one thing, did you?” Crane asked in a slightly amazed tone. “Oh no, they’ve done so much more for our cause, mostly without even knowing it. When tensions began rising with the birth of the Rebellion, I saw a golden opportunity to carry out our riskier operations by using the war as cover. We stoked the fire on both sides, Blueblood bribed and blackmailed his fellow nobles to oppose the separation and support the war, while Arcana intercepted any and all calls for peace made by the Equestrians and sabotaged negotiations.”

“Why?!” Twilight demanded. “What ‘risky operations’ could possibly justify bringing this country to its knees and steeping it in the blood of thousands?!”

“Well, one example off the top of my head would be Brine,” Crane replied calmly, clearly enjoying the rise he was getting out of us. “After all, a key part of being an alicorn is… immortality. As such, we had to carry out extensive field studies into necromancy, an area of magic that has been long since untouched. Then there was the Children of the Earth, who grew up out of the ashes left in the wake of the surrender. They harvested wings and horns, which we were able to buy under the table to use in our experiments. It’s a pity that they insisted on burning yours Rarity, that would have made a nice souvenir.”

“I’m going to murder you,” I muttered in a dark tone.

“I have no doubt,” Crane responded without any fear. “You have quite a lot of blood on your hooves already; however I have no intentions of dying… not ever. So this is your final chance, join me and stand by my side when I build the new world… or perish with the old one.”

“I know where I stand,” I told him, taking up my offensive stance once again. “And since I have my friends at my side, this is your final chance… surrender or die.”

Crane’s smiled faded, I wonder if he really believed I’d say yes. Whatever the case, he knew there would be no convincing any of us after that. All six of us stood with our weapons at the ready, and all six of us were ready to use them with deadly force, even Fluttershy. Unfortunately Crane wasn’t as defenceless as he appeared, and carried a few tricks up his sleeve… literally. He flung his hoof outwards, a glass vial shooting out from the sleeve of his robes and flying our way. We all leapt, rolled and flew out of the way as the vial broke on the grid floor and exploded, ripping a hole into the metal where it had landed.

I looked up from where I had rolled to and saw that Crane was already on the move, making a sprint for the door he had come from. I got up and chased after him, I was much faster than him, but Rainbow Dash was even faster than me. She sped over my head in a blur of colours, spear at the ready; however Crane saw her approaching and whipped another remote from his pocket, hitting a button. Around the ceiling, at equal intervals, four circular panels slid out of the way and long, metallic masts shot down, bolts of electricity passing between them. They were too high up to bother any of us on the ground, but Rainbow was caught right in the middle of one of the streams and dropped straight to the ground.

I kept running forward, leaving Rainbow in favour of chasing after Crane when I saw her moving to stand up. Fluttershy, Applejack and I all reached Crane at the same time, but once again he spun around and threw half a dozen green vials to the ground at his hooves. These ones didn’t explode, but once the glass was broken, they each released a green jelly like blob which all began growing in size, bouncing off the ground, straight for us. Fluttershy managed to duck out of the way of hers, but Applejack and I each took one to the face and chest respectively.

The blobs felt… alive, writhing over us and refusing to come unstuck, continuing to grow until they began to smother us. After a brief moment of struggling, I felt the blob bubbling and dissolving. When it slid off me, I saw that Twilight had zapped each of them with a spell, and now Applejack and I were free. Looking around, I saw Crane mounting the dais, but Pinkie leapt onto it before he could pull himself up. She loomed over him with her mask drawn over her face, her foreleg shooting out and grabbing him by the scruff of his robes. As she picked him up with one hoof, drawing a dagger with the other, Crane hit another button on his remote.

A magic shield erected itself around the dais, forcing Pinkie to release Crane as the shield divided them. Crane fell roughly to the floor, while Pinkie placed her hooves against the shield and began applying pressure. It would have stopped a normal pony completely, but all it could do to Pinkie was slow her down as she pushed her way out. Crane managed to get back to his hooves and started limping across to the other side of the room, hitting more buttons on his remote while we all began to pursue him.

Applejack was forced to throw herself flat to the floor to avoid being cooked alive by a flamethrower that extended from the wall and began spraying the area. One of the four electrical masts launched a ball of fizzling energy at Twilight, which struck her in the head, causing her to drop to her knees, stunned as her sceptre dropped from her magical hold. A second mast retracted into the ceiling, and in its place, a long metal barrel extended out, rotating to face Rainbow and I, firing a cluster of bombs directly in front of us.

We both leapt back as they detonated and ripped another, even bigger hope in the mesh floor. This time however, the glass tank was caught in the blast, a large crack appearing on the side hit and liquid began spraying out. Further down the column, there were flashes of light as small blasts began going off, a couple of the glass canisters exploding and spilling their contents over the floor below. Only Fluttershy remained unimpeded by Crane’s traps, flapping her wings to give her the speed boost necessary to catch up to him.

He spun around, preparing to press more buttons, when Fluttershy smacked the remote right out of his hoof with her mace, smashing it beyond use instantly. Behind us, the force field fizzled and died, although Pinkie was already free of it and running to our aid. Crane reached beneath his mantle and produced another vial, this one dark purple, which he smashed right into Fluttershy’s face. She cried out as the glass cut her flesh, and began stumbling backwards, flailing wildly around as if trying to swat away a swarm of bats. I could see her eyes white and cloudy, blinded by whatever Crane had thrown in her face.

She backed up dangerously close to the first hole Crane had blown in the floor, but Pinkie managed to leap across from the other side and tackled her to safety. With the bombs cleared, I took a running start and leapt the hole in front of me, charging towards Crane with my sword ready to cut him in two. He quickly reached inside his robes and pulled out half a dozen differently coloured vials, but before he could launch them at me, I readied a knife with my magic and threw first. The blade embedded itself in his shoulder and he cried out in agony, immediately dropping all the vials at his own hooves where they shattered.

Whatever concoction had been spilled, it began eating through the metal mesh in seconds, burning a hole right beneath Crane’s hooves. I tried to run forward and catch him, not wanting him to meet his end simply by falling, but I was too late. Screaming, he plummeted down the towering chamber below, nothing but the ground floor to break his fall as the burning liquid had spilled straight down before him, creating holes in all platforms that might have caught him. I tried to grab him with my magic, but was only able to grip onto the handle of my knife and yank it free of him before he was lost, crashing into a canister containing another pony on the way down, where he finally fell onto a work bench covered in dozens of beakers and test tubes filled with various, unknown chemicals.

The resulting explosion was blinding, and the sound of Crane’s screams were drowned out by the rumbling of the entire mechanical column and the mesh floor beneath our hooves. I dropped to my knees as the room trembled violently, my knife levitating back up through the hole to me while I held on for dear life, afraid that whole room was going to come down upon us. The shaking didn’t last too long however, the column managed to remain stable enough and the floor steadied, allowing me to get back up and look around for my friends.

Fluttershy was being supported by Pinkie Pie, the colour in her eyes returning, Twilight was levitating her sceptre slowly as she regained focus over her magic after the stun, and Rainbow Dash and Applejack were just brushing themselves down. Pinkie looked straight at me, reaching up with her free hoof to pull her mask back from her face.

“Crane?” she queried.

I glanced back down the hole; while the light had faded, the entire ground floor was obscured by a churning cloud of smoke.

“Dead,” I replied in a cool tone. “There’s no way he survived that.”

“Is there not?” a voice called out from behind us, loud, clear and authoritative. “Such a shame, I was hoping to finish him myself.”

I spun around, drawing all three of my knives and readying my blade as my eyes swept across to the dais and the now open double doors. Blueblood stood in the threshold, just like he had done in the second memory we had viewed, staring down at us all with contempt.

“Blueblood,” Twilight muttered darkly as she steadied her hold on the sceptre. “Surrender… and you might still reach Equestria alive to face your charges.”

“I’m afraid not Twilight Sparkle,” Blueblood replied in an ominous tone. “I have every intention of returning to Equestria, but not to face your jumped up charges… rather, to deliver my own upon the ungrateful one who sent you here!”

“What makes you think you’re the one being wronged here Blueblood?” Twilight questioned in an incredulous tone. “Did you ever seriously believe that what you were doing was right? That Princess Celestia would ever see it as anything short of treachery? You helped lead two countries into war! Do you have any idea just how much suffering you’ve played a part in causing?!”

“No… I led one country into war,” Blueblood retorted. “Equestria has always been, and will always be the only true empire. I used to revere Celestia, I pledged my life to her, but if she thinks that allowing those peasants to break away from us was a good idea… well then, I guess she is no longer fit to rule our great nation.”

“And you are?!” Rainbow spat. “After all the lives you helped ruin, you think you would make a good ruler?!”

“A strong leader needs to be willing to make sacrifices,” Blueblood stated with a stomp of his hoof. “Crane saw that, but what he failed to understand is that the world needs a single figure to rule over it with an iron hoof, somepony stronger than all the rest, who isn’t afraid to do what it takes to keep everypony in their place. The new world doesn’t need some ‘master race’ of alicorns…”

Blueblood’s horn glowed, and before any of us knew what was coming or could move to prevent it, he produced a large syringe from his jacket pocket, filled with a golden substance that shone like liquid sunlight.

“It only needs one!” he bellowed before stabbing the needle into his own neck, and injecting himself with the completed formula.

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